Kid’s movies…

[FredH]

I saw the original film when I was nine years old, which was the perfect age for it. But I’m wondering—

Say you show a nine-year-old the Episodes in numbered order, so they don’t come into the prequels knowing the big reveal from TESB. Is the ending of Revenge of the Sith — where the “hero” goes bad, murders people including children, and then gets burned to a crisp onscreen and transformed into cyborg — maybe too intense for them, coming as a shock as it would?

(For that matter, even if it’s offscreen and only mentioned in dialogue, his murder of the Tusken tribe would be pretty disturbing too — maybe more so because he hasn’t plainly become a villain yet.)

 

[camdudetenger2018]

I saw the original film when I was nine years old, which was the perfect age for it. But I’m wondering—

Say you show a nine-year-old the Episodes in numbered order, so they don’t come into the prequels knowing the big reveal from TESB. Is the ending of Revenge of the Sith — where the “hero” goes bad, murders people including children, and then gets burned to a crisp onscreen and transformed into cyborg — maybe too intense for them, coming as a shock as it would?

(For that matter, even if it’s offscreen and only mentioned in dialogue, his murder of the Tusken tribe would be pretty disturbing too — maybe more so because he hasn’t plainly become a villain yet.)

i think i watched the original trilogy at that age too

 

[Cicero]

Some of them figure out where Anakin's journey is going, some know from cultural osmosis, and some are surprised and/or hurt. I read about one girl who told her parent while watching The Clone Wars that "I don't think Anakin is a good guy, he keeps doing bad things!"

Younger viewers also usually know that Palpatine will become the Emperor, but are sometimes shocked that he and Darth Sidious are the same person.

I saw the original film when I was nine years old, which was the perfect age for it. But I’m wondering—

I've always thought I benefitted from having seen it as a toddler. It has a special logic at that age—R2-D2 is the main character until the final attack on the Death Star, and Return of the Jedi works similarly.

 

[FredH]

Sure — I’m just thinking that slamming into the evil/crispy ending could be like when, at about the same age, I saw Space: 1999’s “Dragon’s Domain” and had to run out of the room when it reached That Particular Moment.

 

[Orac]

It would depend on the temperament of the child. If they're already highly neurotic and easily upset maybe watching violent movies is a bad idea.

 

[Gaith]

Is the ending of Revenge of the Sith — where the “hero” goes bad, murders people including children, and then gets burned to a crisp onscreen and transformed into cyborg — maybe too intense for them, coming as a shock as it would?

RotS is an exceptionally tonally muddled big-budget blockbuster, yeah. It starts with a fizzy slapstick action sequence that's goofier than anything in the previous two movies, then ends on that genuinely gruesome scene.

Sure, one could say "Well, that's the point! It should be surprising when things end in disaster, and the bad guys win!" And, if a given viewer finds that reply to be satisfying, well, they're entitled to that opinion.

But, bad filmmaking is still bad filmmaking, and the PT (production values aside) is very badly made.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

RotS is an exceptionally tonally muddled big-budget blockbuster, yeah. It starts with a fizzy slapstick action sequence that's goofier than anything in the previous two movies, then ends on that genuinely gruesome scene.

Sure, one could say "Well, that's the point! It should be surprising when things end in disaster, and the bad guys win!" And, if a given viewer finds that reply to be satisfying, well, they're entitled to that opinion.

But, bad filmmaking is still bad filmmaking, and the PT (production values aside) is very badly made.

...and for all of George Lucas's PT production era promises that audiences would see Anakin as a "fallen hero", he failed miserably in the execution, as Anakin was one of the most unlikeable, moronic characters in all Star Wars media (and not in the Anakin fans' defensive, "Uh, he's supposed be turning, so of course he's unlikable" manner), to the point his every, dumbass decision inspired nothing except groans. I recall a large part of the audience of ROTS cheering when Obi-Wan dismembered Anakin--they were not sad--they had enough of him at that point, and did not care about his fate. OT Vader was so distinct a personality, one that Lucas failed to link, or create the characterization bridge to in PT Anakin, especially the film (ROTS) with the single purpose of being the link to the OT.

 

[Ithekro]

Pretty much one of the major things The Clone Wars cartoons did was reinvest in Anakin Skywalker's character to the point where the audience cares again. That and transitions him better from teen to adult, but also makes him heroic while also showing his slow fall into the Dark Side making the switch in Revenge of the Sith believable. By the time Hyden Christensen comes back to the role in Kenobi and Ahsoka, he is better written and people that watched The Clone Wars care about Anakin Skywalker about as much as Darth Vader.

 

[JD]

The Clone Wars fixed a lot of what was wrong with the prequels.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

The Clone Wars fixed a lot of what was wrong with the prequels.

The best thing The Mandalorian ever did was introduce Bo-Katan etc. and make me go and watch 7 seasons of Clone Wars and 4 seasons of Rebels to get the backstory. I didn't realise how much I was missing out.

 

[JD]

Yeah, they're great, and the people who can't handle animation really don't know what they're missing.

 

[USS Firefly]

The way Anakin was at the start of episode 3, he should have been in episode 2. A happy guy with humor.

 

[Cicero]

The Clone Wars fixed a lot of what was wrong with the prequels.

I think that one of the prequels' biggest problems was that the Phantom Menace era should have been a trilogy, and the Clone Wars (II, CW, & III) a second trilogy.

Lucas was telling the generational story of a society, but tried to condense two generations into a single trilogy. The prequels needed more room for the story of Anakin's fall, and would've benefitted from fully depicting the Republic at its height.

The overall structure would've been (I've forgotten Campbell's terminology):

The world before (I-III)
Crossed threshold (Anakin becomes a Jedi, Palpatine is Chancellor)
Journey toward the cave (IV-VI)
Innermost cave (Anakin Becomes Vader, the Republic falls)
Rescue from the cave (VIII-IX)
Return threshold (Anakin saves Luke and Leia, the Empire falls)
The world reborn (X-XII)

 

[JD]

I would have just skipped the pre-Clone Wars era entirely and start with Anakin already a Padawan and start The Clone Wars at the episode of Episode I, and then Episode II would be set during the height of the war, and then Revenge of the Sith could pretty much stay the same.

 

[Gaith]

I would have just skipped the pre-Clone Wars era entirely and start with Anakin already a Padawan and start The Clone Wars at the episode of Episode I, and then Episode II would be set during the height of the war, and then Revenge of the Sith could pretty much stay the same.

This, and, my two cents: don't make Anakin the protagonist (or even co-protagonist). Putting the main focus on Obi-Wan could have allowed secondary character Anakin to grow his darker side earlier without making the overall tone of the movies too grim. As Obi-Wan said in ANH, Anakin was a "good friend" to him. Making young Obi-Wan the protagonist could have allowed him to be blinded by said friendship, and even for Anakin to use that friendship as manipulation.

 

[JD]

Yeah, that's a good idea. We really didn't get to see enough of their friendship as equals before Anakin turned in Revenge of the Sith. And even The Clone Wars seemed to split them up more often than not, so we really didn't get to see much of their relationship there either.

 

[Gaith]

Related to my above idea, the main romantic drama of the prequel trilogy could have been Obi-Wan and Satine, rather than Anakin and Padmé. Obi-Wan could have been on the verge of doing the honest/right thing and resigning the Jedi Order for love, but his sense of duty wins out when the Clone Wars erupt. This would have solved the problem of trying to make a credible and likable love story in which the guy in question is an off-putting twerp.

 

[fireproof78]

This, and, my two cents: don't make Anakin the protagonist (or even co-protagonist). Putting the main focus on Obi-Wan could have allowed secondary character Anakin to grow his darker side earlier without making the overall tone of the movies too grim. As Obi-Wan said in ANH, Anakin was a "good friend" to him. Making young Obi-Wan the protagonist could have allowed him to be blinded by said friendship, and even for Anakin to use that friendship as manipulation.

As a friend of mine put it, "you tell the story in the OT from the son's eyes, and tell the PT from the father's (Obi-Wan's) eyes "

 

[JD]

Related to my above idea, the main romantic drama of the prequel trilogy could have been Obi-Wan and Satine, rather than Anakin and Padmé. Obi-Wan could have been on the verge of doing the honest/right thing and resigning the Jedi Order for love, but his sense of duty wins out when the Clone Wars erupt. This would have solved the problem of trying to make a credible and likable love story in which the guy in question is an off-putting twerp.

But if the whole point of the prequels was to follow Anakin's transformation into Vader, then you would need to explore his relationship with Luke and Leia's mother, since we're going to need to see their birth at the end.
But I would love to get a book or comic that explored Obi-Wan and Satine's original realtionship.

 

[Set Harth]

As a friend of mine put it, "you tell the story in the OT from the son's eyes, and tell the PT from the father's (Obi-Wan's) eyes "

Padme... you got some splainin to do!!!